


Tired

by HolderOfYarn



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cuddles, Emperor Karkat, Fluff, Gamzee has anxiety, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Maybe A Little Plot, Might count as pale porn, Moirails, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Panic Attacks, Probably also PTSD, Sleepy Cuddles, kinda fade to black pale porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26389363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolderOfYarn/pseuds/HolderOfYarn
Summary: Gamzee wakes up from a nightmare and is left scared and confused.
Relationships: Gamzee Makara/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	Tired

Your name is Gamzee Makara and you can't breathe.

You woke with a start, wheezing, heart racing, and with the feeling of thousands of bugs marching along under your skin. You're breathing, in and out but you're not getting any air. Hands find your throat as you frantically look around. It's dark. The room is too small and oh so very quiet. The platform beneath you is soft and silky, far nicer than what you're used to. As you breathe you start to calm down, slowly. You don’t know what set you off. Whatever dream you’d had has already gone and left your memory, but the feeling of wrongness it left clings to you. You let out a shaky breath and rub at your arms. The air is cold. Your cold. They left you out again. Disappointment at the realization weighs heavily on your shoulders. They’re normally good about getting you back to your room. It's the only thing you’ve ever really requested of them. You hate being left out. There are always motherfuckers walking about, and no amount of stealth is gonna hide you from them all. 

You drag yourself up off the platform. You can yell at them later, right now you need clothes. Clothes, and by feeling up your face maybe some paint too. Who the fuck told them they could remove you’re paint? Those sons of bitches. The walls give way easily as you push at them. Thick fabric separates and suddenly bright filtered sunlight from uncovered windows floods through the gap, blinding you. You blink your eyes as they adjust. Vague shapes of furniture poke through the white fog as it gradually starts to disperse. You freeze as your eyes catch sight of another troll draping themselves across one of the couches facing you. You cringe once your pan catches up to you, turning your face away and looking for something to cover. The floor is clean from what you can see and by the shaggy feel underfoot, carpeted. You don’t remember any of the back rooms being carpeted. Are you in private quarters? You turn back to the troll. You don’t remember going off with anyone. Don’t even remember drinking anything that’d go and make you forget doing so. There's no noise from them. Not a chuckle, or a laugh, not even an amused buzz from your voodoos. 

The longer you stare the clearer and less trollish it gets. They're not real. It's all just a pile of pillows and blankets. The realization settles a panic in you. You laugh weakly, and walk the three feet to pat at it, making damn sure nothing heinous is lurking in it. Not a thing pops out. With a sigh you take another look around the room. A few more small piles are laid about here and there, though not all of them are seemingly for jamming. The walls are a warm gray and covered in different pictures, posters, and quotations. Most of them are scenes and lines from various romance stories you only vaguely remember. As you're reading one it hits you, you're not on a church ship. You haven't been for a good long while. Are you in your moirail's room? 

Ah shit you have a moirail!

That weight from before drops from your shoulders to your chest leaving you winded. Your fins flare as that horrible twinge in your pusher starts to crawl its way up. You can't get back to the platform fast enough. You're there in a flash, ripping open the drapes to see a figure curled up in its black sheets. You close them behind as you crawl forward, wrapping your arms around him like a wriggler with their safety blanket. His warmth seeps into you immediately as you nuzzle into the side of his neck. Your pusher is still going a mile a minute, but at least you think you're starting to calm down. He smells like brown sugar and spice. It's nice you think. It's not the same sweat and blood as you were used to. _Were…_ You don’t know why that's what you expect from him still. It's been sweeps since either of you have spent any amount of time in war. Karkat smelling nice should be your normal. It _is_ your normal. Your best friend is emperor now, there's no reason for you to still be thinking on or about that kind of shit anymore. Your pan is just trying to fuck with you. Fling you back in time, and constantly remind you of when things were all kinds of bad.

You feel sick. Your hands are shaking and breathing is still a bit of a tricky thing right this second. You try to drown out those thoughts with the feel of him. His pulse on your lips is slow, and his steady breathing helps to calm yours some. It all takes you by surprise when a hand of his reaches up to pat at your hair. He’s all grumbling something sleepy at you and you can't help but smile and give him all the little kisses you can till he goes and shoves you away. With a yawn he turns over to look at you. Your brother looks so tired and there's part of you that twinges with guilt for having woken him. “What’s up?” he asks as he tries to blink the sleepy out of his eye.

“Not a thing best friend,” you say all quiet and settle down close to him. He hums and gets his arms around you till you're all up and trapped against him. He’s looking at you with his one good eye half shut and your pusher does something funny. You kiss him again. He makes a surprised chirr at you but kisses you back anyhow. His hands run up your bare back as you chirp. 

Whatever anxieties that were clinging to you fade away as you melt into him. Slow kisses and gentle touches replace that shit with feelings of pale pity and safeness. You get your hand in his hair just to feel him shiver. He squeezes you tighter. His fingers dance along your ribs, and time seems to fly as you both lazily pap each other down. Eventually it ends. The two of you still although neither of you break apart. Rather kissing is just a thing both of you forgot you had been doing. By the time you remember it you're sure he’s already fallen back to sleep. You don’t want to wake him again. Your brother works so hard, he needs his rest. So instead you just lay there quiet as can be, breathing in his breath and listening to the steady beat of his pusher. It all just about soothes you right back to sleep. 

But then that gross feeling from before washes over you. It makes your skin feel sticky and wet. There's something wrong. You're being watched. There are eyes burning into you, you know there are. You’d reach out with your voodoos to see if that’d give you any hints at where they are, but you don’t want to give Karkat a head full of daymares. You don’t really want to leave the safety of his arms either. For now you settle on listening. And listen you do. A long moment of silence passes where there wasn't nothing but your brother’s soft breath and your pounding pusher. But then in the back, just underneath the sound of the hive settling, and the ceiling fan turning you hear something. A slight shuffle of fabric. You go stock stiff as you try to locate exactly where it came from. Your ears flick out, with your tiny ear fins flaring to help radar it. You didn't check all the piles. You checked the one but someone could have easily been hiding in any of the others. You should have- 

_Whap_

A heavy weight comes down and smacks your ear flat against your pan. Your eyes fly open and you squeal in surprise before the thought to beat the hell out of whoever It is crosses your mind. Before you can so much as hiss, your eyes meet a tired red one. “What are you doing?” You're being asked and still in your panic you don’t have an answer. You shrug and he grumbles something nasty and sighs, “and what should you be doing?” 

“Sleepin’,” you say finally, deflating as he paps you again. 

“Sleeping! Yes! Why aren't you doing that.” 

You shrug again and he pulls at your ear till you all whine at him, “Just heard somethin’,” you mutter, “wasn't trying to wake you none.” 

He snorts and his hand goes to caress your face, his thumb rubbing at your cheekbone, “what’d you hear?” 

“Aww wha’dnt nothing you gotta worry yourself with just up an-” 

_Whap_

Motherfucker paps you hard enough to rattle. You get your looking on at him all offended like but before you get to so much as make a complaint he interrupts with a “try again dumbass.” 

You pout, “Thought I went and heard another motherfucker wondering around s’all…” 

“Do you want me to go check?”

You do. Fuck you really do, but he’s got to be tired and there's bound to be important shit to do tonight. “I can do it just fine brother, go back to sleep,” you say with a slight waver, and kiss him for good measure before tearing yourself away from him. His hand falls away from you as you do and immediately you miss his heat as cold air rushes to take it’s place. He hums at you for a moment and shuts his eyes as you slip outside the curtains, really thinking he’s going to go and do as you've told him to. The room is no different from before. Bright filtered sunlight still drowns out most of it. First thing you do check the window locks and shut their curtains. Just as shadows start to take over the room a hand ghosts over your shoulder. You jump and turn to see Karkat making his way past you to the closet. You rush over as quick as you can, afraid if you ain't there something will gobble him up. You loom over his shoulder as he swings it open. It's as empty as always outside a few fancy clothes he ain't never gonna wear and an extra jam pile made of paleplay stuff the two of you have been collecting. He pats your shoulder before walking in and starts moving things aside. There's no one behind the hung clothes, nor behind the shelf-space that you're pretty sure was made for shoes. You’d have helped out but you’ve gone and got yourself distracted pulling something out of the pile. It's a snuggleplane but heavy. How someone managed to make that you don’t think you’ll ever know. By the time you pull it around your shoulders Karkat has already gone and finished sweeping the area. He takes your hand when he’s done, squeezes it real good, and takes you around the rest of the room. 

Together the two of you check the main doors, their locks, the furniture, and all the vents to the room. By the end neither of you have found a thing and you're feeling a smidgen better. Karkat rubs at his face as you put the last vent back in place. As soon as you're back to his side he wraps an arm around you, “Anything to report?” he asks, sounding all kinds of sluggish. You shake your head and he bonks his against yours, “good…” With that he leads you back to the platform. He set you down first, then before you can sprawl out he’s flopped over on top of you. You giggle and get your figures in his back, all rubbing circles in the muscles there. He’s purring at you before long. A low rumbly thing that tells you you're doing good. Hell yeah your good. Used to get told that a lot by siblings. You spent a lot of time with the hurt and the stressed back in your time at the church. They all found comfort in it, in you. Since you weren't allowed to leave the complex much after Grand died you had to find ways to do all you could to help out with a civil war raging. Your smile starts to droop. 

Your thoughts are broken by karkat pinching at your horns, “whatever rusty gears you have in your thinkpan are screeching together at an intolerable level for this early in the evening. Stop it.” You laugh at that, and try to let go of all that tension that’s suddenly gone and made its way into you without your knowing. All right, your chill. Your fine. You're not even too sure what’d bogging you down. Just tired you guess. Yeah, you’ll head off to sleep and all those bad feelings will have gone away. Just gotta fall asleep. Only you can't. Instead you find yourself staring up at the dark ceiling above you. Your mind buzzing and anxiety biting at your heels for no good reason.

Karkat shifts above you. His weight holds you down. It's a good kind of weight, not the kind that makes your pusher struggle to pump and your lungs deflate, but the kind that grounds you. Makes you feel real. Fuck knows you’ve been struggling with that. Everything feels too perfect, too right. Sometimes you can't help but wonder when you'll wake up back at the church ship. _When will this dream be over?_ You clutch at his back, not wanting to know. It's not that the church was bad, you think as guilt starts to rise up your throat, It's never been bad. It's just not what you want. 

Soft kisses make their way up your neck, sending sparks of warmth through you. You can feel tears start to prick in your eyes, so you shut them real tight and just try to breathe. Things shuffle around you, you’re moved and Karkat wraps your heavy snuggleplane tighter around you. You open them mid-way through him building a cocoon around you. He’s throwing everything soft in arms reach around the two of you, and before he settles back down beside you he grabs one little, black remote. A button press later calm ocean waves are being played over invisible speakers. That twinge from before is still there, growing steadily stronger. Normally you’d go and hide yourself away for a bit until it's gone, no need to bother a brother by it, but as he plants more of those kisses all over you, you can't find it in you to fight it. You're safe, you're comfortable, and your best friend’s got you. “Pale for you,” you say, your voice cracking more than you’d prefer it to. 

“Pale for you to.”

He doesn't make you talk after that. Just pulls you close and let's you ride through the waves of it. You cry. For all you try to stop you cant. Karkat’s got you, rubbing circles in your shoulders and neck. Shooshing you down, and humming sweet little things at you till your all cried out. Sleep comes easier after that. With his fingers running through your hair, and the sound of ocean waves crashing against the shore you begin to fade off. You’re still trembling something fierce, but as he pets between your horns your muscles start to relax. You want to tell him again, how much you love him, how much he means to you, but he hushes you quiet. Your tears are kissed away. You shut your eyes and before you know it your swept away. 

You wake up again to a dark room with the drapes pushed open. Karkat sits at the edge of the platform getting dressed for another nights work when he sees you staring. He leans over stealing another quick kiss from you, “I’ll be right back, go back to sleep” he says in a whisper. You do as your told, knowing you'll get to wake up to him again.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic, please be nice >->  
> There might be more chapters, although i cant promise anyone anything. I'm doing my best.


End file.
